Owner Faruk gets bail over FR Tower design forgery charges

Engineer SMHI Faruk, one of the owners of FR Tower, has secured bail a day after his arrest by the Anti-Corruption Commission in a case over charges of forging the design of the fire-ravaged building in Dhaka’s Banani.

Senior Special Judge of Dhaka KM Imrul Kayes granted him bail on Tuesday after hearing his petition and the ACC’s plea for sending him to jail.

A team of the anti-graft watchdog arrested Faruk from Gulshan-2 area on Monday.

His bail came a day after Tasvir Ul Islam, another owner of the FR Tower, also secured bail in the same case.

Tasvir, a member of the BNP’s central committee and the president of the party’s Kurigram wing, is the managing director of Quasem Drycells which owns three floors of the 23-storey building.

Real estate company Rupayan Housing built FR Tower on a land owned by SMHI Faruque on Kamal Ataturk Avenue.

The ownership of the building was jointly held by the landowner and the developer. Hence, it was named Faruque Rupayan Tower, or FR Tower in short.

Rupayan Group Chairman Liaquat Ali Khan Mukul is also among 23 accused in the case.

Lawyer Ehsanul Haque  Samaji, who sought bail for Faruk, said, “He is more than 80 years old. He is seriously sick and has been arrested inhumanly from the hospital.”

On the other hand, ACC lawyer Mosharraf Hossain Kajol argued that the suspects in connivance with each other forged the design of the building. “Floors from 15 to 23 of the FR Tower have illegally been constructed. They are all guilty.”

Twenty-seven people were killed and about 50 others were injured in a blaze that swept through the high-rise office bloc in Banani on Mar 28.

A housing and public works ministry investigation found five of FR Tower’s top floors were “illegally” built and held about 50 RAJUK staff members, including two ex-chairmen, responsible for irregularities in approving the building design.

It also found irregularities in the floors being cleared for securing loans.

The charges against Tasvir include buying the FR Tower floors illegally by taking Tk 56.5 million in loans from GSP Finance Limited.

Police had earlier arrested Tasvir, who headed the managing committee of the building, in a case over the deaths in the fire incident. He later walked out on bail in that case.